There are a lot of strategies when it comes to learning like taking breaks, studying for x amount of time, having music playing, putting all your distractions away, studying in a place meant for studying only, and a lot of other ideas.
These strategies can definitely help you learn more effectively. There is no question about that! But there is one thing when it comes to studying that if you forget and don’t do it, you are going to STRUGGLE a lot when learning. The most important thing to do is…
REVIEW!
I can’t tell you how many times I have wasted learning all the material for a topic just to forget it because I didn’t review!?! Believe me… I was so upset about it haha
If you don’t review material, how do you know what you remember and what you don’t? Reviewing let’s you know what information you don’t remember from studying. Wouldn’t you like to know that??? haha
The hard thing about reviewing is you spent all this time studying then you are taking more time to review everything you just study. I understand at the end of studying that you are probably tried, want to relax, and definitely don’t want to look at all the material you learned again.
But you need to take that extra time to review because it will save you extra hours of relearning the information. Ideally, you would have a review scheduled in place so you know when to review the material for long term retention.
There can be a lot of variations of a reviewing schedule based on what you are learning, but a standard schedule would be: Right after learning, a day later, 3 days later, a week later, and a month later.
A huge flag about reviewing is that reviewing isn’t about just going over the material and seeing if you remembered it or not. No no no. Reviewing is about being able to recall all the information you learned perfectly.
Say I am memorizing all the elements in the periodic table of elements. I just finish learning them then test myself to review if I know them all. I get all but 15. If I stopped here after knowing I missed 15 and relearned them, there is no guarantee that I know those 15 elements.
The only way to know for sure is to review the elements again and not just the 15 missed. If you reviewed the 15 elements, you might be able to recall them since they are fresh in your mind which is why recalling all the elements again allows you to see if you know them or not since the focus is on all the elements.
You do need to pay attention to the type of material you are learning because the material dictates how much you should be review. Learning and reviewing all the elements is completely different and easier than learning and reviewing physics.
How often do you review material? What have you found an effective way of review the material you learn?
